Dr. Michael Pecht, Director of the Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering, Named Editor-in-Chief of IEEE’s First Interdisciplinary, Rapid-Publication Journal

17 July 2012 – IEEE, the world’s largest professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for humanity, is continuing to develop its strategy on open access publishing. The IEEE Board of Directors recently approved the creation of a rapid-publication, open access megajournal spanning all IEEE fields of interest. Several other topical open access journals are also planned as part of this phase of the rollout.

“The new journals are the next steps in the implementation of our open access strategy announced in 2011,” said Anthony Durniak, IEEE Staff Executive for Publications. “A hybrid open access option also has been available to authors publishing in any of IEEE’s journals since 2011,” said Durniak.

Dr. Michael Pecht, founder and director of the Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering at the University of Maryland, has been named the journal’s first editor-in-chief. A Fellow of IEEE, ASME, and SAE, Pecht was formerly editor of IEEE Transactions on Reliability for eight years as well as an associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging, and Manufacturing Technology. He also has served on the editorial advisory board of IEEE Spectrum magazine. Pecht, who has written over 20 books and 400 technical articles, will spend the next several months assembling an editorial advisory board and developing guidelines and procedures for prospective authors to follow.

The new megajournal, the hybrid option, and other forthcoming specialized open access titles are part of IEEE’s efforts to provide authors with alternatives to traditional publishing.